Letting go of past trauma that is negatively impacting my confidence

[CornbreadFed]

To keep it short, college was a terrible time in my life and it compounded in to me struggling career & life wise until like 30. I can’t unsee and undo what happened, so those memories, experiences, and consequences continue to haunt me and negatively affect my confidence. I’ve considered therapy, but I am pretty skeptical on that option. Anyone else can relate?

 

[SW15]

I think many men will be able to relate. It seems like there was trauma on multiple levels, both related to attracting/seducing women and other aspects of life.

I think a lot of men end up disappointed with their college sexual marketplace experiences. This forum has 2 good college sex threads below. For a lot of men, the college sex experience doesn't match up with their expectations entering college. In college, freshman males have a narrower dating pool whereas freshman females are desired by other freshmen, upperclassmen, graduate students, and even men in the working world. The marketplace is imbalanced at first. The college sex experience can get better from sophomore-senior years. Most guys aren't scoring all that much, even at "party schools" and most opt for some sort of girlfriend (if they can even get one) in order to get semi regular college sex.

Observations about college sex life from someone that went to a party school.

I thought I'd share this as someone who went to a party school and was in a fraternity there as well. Not wanting to give too much about myself but I went to UGA and graduated a few years ago. While Athens has its hot girls, I do feel like the quality got worse every year due to the admission...

www.sosuave.net

The college hype is unreal, true players get how overrated it is.

Looking back at it, I am amazed at how big the hype around college truly was. Maybe my boy @CornbreadFed and @SW15 could speak on this but I speak with so many guys who seem to have peaked in college and don't realize how beautiful life can get after it. FWIW, I was in a fraternity in college, a...

www.sosuave.net

Therapy is very limited in what it can do for a man from a dating perspective. The changes that a man might see in his dating life are usually incremental at best after completing 1+ years of therapy.

Going to therapy is unlikely to make a man a better real life approacher. It's possible that therapy that can help with some social awkwardness in approaches and it might help some men make better first impressions. Better first impressions aren't automatic 'yes' responses to getting first dates from approaches. A better first impression might mean changing a 'hard no where a woman feels ick' to a 'meh and forgettable' feeling. Going to therapy is also not going to get a man more right swipes on a swipe app. It's not going to change much with how well he turns his swipe app matches into first dates. It probably won't make too much of a difference on his reply rate on Instagram DM's either. The best thing that men can do with getting more first dates is building a more attractive physique in the gym. Older men (35+) will often benefit from the @Mike32ct identified combo of good height, good hairline, and money.

I could make an argument that therapy might help with longer form first dates. However, I tend to think the effects of therapy on dating outcomes are more meaningful as a interaction goes on. If a man is unable to get that first spark, having better mental health is not going to make a lot of a difference.

I don't think couples therapy/counseling is all that valuable in fixing what ails longer term relationships, but that's more of a topic for a different thread.

Therapy might be worth doing solely for yourself. It depends on a number of factors. If the primary problem is dating, then traditional psychotherapy will be limited on what it can do.

 

[BackInTheGame78]

I think many men will be able to relate. It seems like there was trauma on multiple levels, both related to attracting/seducing women and other aspects of life.

I think a lot of men end up disappointed with their college sexual marketplace experiences. This forum has 2 good college sex threads below. For a lot of men, the college sex experience doesn't match up with their expectations entering college. In college, freshman males have a narrower dating pool whereas freshman females are desired by other freshmen, upperclassmen, graduate students, and even men in the working world. The marketplace is imbalanced at first. The college sex experience can get better from sophomore-senior years. Most guys aren't scoring all that much, even at "party schools" and most opt for some sort of girlfriend (if they can even get one) in order to get semi regular college sex.

Observations about college sex life from someone that went to a party school.

I thought I'd share this as someone who went to a party school and was in a fraternity there as well. Not wanting to give too much about myself but I went to UGA and graduated a few years ago. While Athens has its hot girls, I do feel like the quality got worse every year due to the admission...

www.sosuave.net

The college hype is unreal, true players get how overrated it is.

Looking back at it, I am amazed at how big the hype around college truly was. Maybe my boy @CornbreadFed and @SW15 could speak on this but I speak with so many guys who seem to have peaked in college and don't realize how beautiful life can get after it. FWIW, I was in a fraternity in college, a...

www.sosuave.net

Therapy is very limited in what it can do for a man from a dating perspective. The changes that a man might see in his dating life are usually incremental at best after completing 1+ years of therapy.

Going to therapy is unlikely to make a man a better real life approacher. It's possible that therapy that can help with some social awkwardness in approaches and it might help some men make better first impressions. Better first impressions aren't automatic 'yes' responses to getting first dates from approaches. A better first impression might mean changing a 'hard no where a woman feels ick' to a 'meh and forgettable' feeling. Going to therapy is also not going to get a man more right swipes on a swipe app. It's not going to change much with how well he turns his swipe app matches into first dates. It probably won't make too much of a difference on his reply rate on Instagram DM's either. The best thing that men can do with getting more first dates is building a more attractive physique in the gym. Older men (35+) will often benefit from the @Mike32ct identified combo of good height, good hairline, and money.

I could make an argument that therapy might help with longer form first dates. However, I tend to think the effects of therapy on dating outcomes are more meaningful as a interaction goes on. If a man is unable to get that first spark, having better mental health is not going to make a lot of a difference.

I don't think couples therapy/counseling is all that valuable in fixing what ails longer term relationships, but that's more of a topic for a different thread.

Therapy isn't designed to make you better with women. It's designed to make you a better version of you and allow you to break free from the baggage that is holding you back from becoming that.

 

[CornbreadFed]

Therapy might be worth doing solely for yourself. It depends on a number of factors. If the primary problem is dating, then traditional psychotherapy will be limited on what it can do.

Therapy isn't designed to make you better with women. It's designed to make you a better version of you and allow you to break free from the baggage that is holding you back from becoming that.

I am still in a LTR, but I did see it affect my dating life a lot. This is also in regard to my job and just trying to project myself forward in life too.

 

[Clockwerk50]

Have you looked for a YouTube channel that features the audiobook format of Psycho-Cybernetics or read the book? If not, I highly recommend reading it.

If you're tight on time, you should consider just reading Chapter 10, which you can find as a PDF online.

 

[Mike32ct]

I went to therapy in the early 2000s. It didn’t make any difference for me in the women department. But it did it boost my confidence enough to land my first job. So it was an overall positive.

 

[SW15]

I am still in a LTR, but I did see it affect my dating life a lot.

Therapy would be more likely to help in your current spot than a man who isn't in a relationship and trying to build a dating life. The incremental benefits you might see would tend to be later in an interaction. Fortunately for you, you are at that point.

I think you have good reason to be skeptical of therapy in general, as it a rather mixed track record.

I went to therapy in the early 2000s. It didn’t make any difference for me in the women department.

Typical outcome based on how psychotherapy tends to be designed.

This is also in regard to my job.

It's possible it could help there.

 

[ManFromTartarus]

Don't look back.

I can relate Corn, PTSD is something that can haunt you and hinder your growth & development through life if you let it. I myself have had to suffer with it for a lot of my life and the only thing that has helped me keep my demons at bay, and proceed through without falling off, is to focus on what's important, the here & now, and the future. Not the past.

You're right, you can't unsee the past, all you can do is keep the lessons you learned from those difficult times to grow and develop as a person, and protect you from the hazards of life. I don't know what challenges you faced from your college days but I'm sure you're a wiser man from those lessons.

As for counseling, skepticism is good, it will help you to be objective should you ever have the courage to pursue it. Just don't let your skepticism prevent you from making use of a tool that may help you in life, especially if you've never experienced it.

My own PTSD is from my youth growing up in a very violent place, and later in life from a bad divorce/custody. I've been to therapy, some has helped, some not, but the only thing that has truly helped me when a skeleton comes out of my closet is to focus on what's important, today, tomorrow, and not looking back.

 

[Bokanovsky]

To keep it short, college was a terrible time in my life and it compounded in to me struggling career & life wise until like 30. I can’t unsee and undo what happened, so those memories, experiences, and consequences continue to haunt me and negatively affect my confidence. I’ve considered therapy, but I am pretty skeptical on that option. Anyone else can relate?

What was so terrible about your college experience? Homosexual experimentation?

Seriously, it's hard to give you advice without knowing what you're dealing with. The fact of the matter is that college is not a fun experience for most people. It's certainly nothing like how it is portrayed in movies.

 

[Everything_but_Game]

Taking maximum accountability for your own actions goes a long way.

The things you could blame on someone else - find how your own actions impacted these things, and come to terms with that.

Blaming any of this stuff on others will get you nowhere.
Being the victim to circumstance will keep you bitter.

 

[BadBoy89]

When past trauma starts to affect me, I think

"If the men that delivered fresh water to my home, brought food to my table, made the building I live in, brought heat to my home, made the clothes I wear, if one of them had "past trauma" that wouldn't let them do their work, I'd be dead.

Helps get over it quick.

 

[FlexpertHamilton]

Hot take, but I don't really believe there's such a thing as "curing" trauma, in a sense. As you alluded to, the way you deal with trauma is by simply understanding it, acknowledging it, and letting it go and heal over time on its own. Talking about trauma only serves to reactivate the neural synapses that store the memory. We know in neurology that merely thinking or talking about memories actually strengthens them, and over time they become corrupted from all the re-writes. This is why long-term memories tend to be unreliable, especially if they involve stories that people have told over and over. This is also why it's so common for therapists to gaslight people through suggestibility (much like hypnosis) into thinking they have "repressed" memories of sexual abuse or whatever else, it's truly insidious.

Trauma is in the past. It can only ever effect you in the present; our lives are a continuous "now moment"...in this context, the present is not a result of the past, but the opposite: The past is a result of the present, ie how you view and respond to these memories as they surface today.

I think therapy can work but I also think the overwhelming majority of therapists are either useless or actually twisted and sick. You need to actually find a good one, imo the older therapists with PhDs who focused more on psychoanalysis are best especially if they have a religious/theology background - I'm not even a religious person myself but I think those types are more likely to understand the human condition.

OP, have you considered trying psychedelics? Specifically psilocybin mushrooms. They've done a great deal for me in sorting through my traumas, in addition to extensive journaling, far more than any therapist has. On mushrooms, my mind generated complex "machinescapes" that represented a causality chain of the events surrounding my traumas, what led to them, how they effected me, etc, and I don't think I could have done it without mushrooms.

 

[BaronOfHair]

To keep it short, college was a terrible time in my life and it compounded in to me struggling career & life wise until like 30. I can’t unsee and undo what happened, so those memories, experiences, and consequences continue to haunt me and negatively affect my confidence. I’ve considered therapy, but I am pretty skeptical on that option. Anyone else can relate?

What exactly happened to you that you found traumatic? I ask, because we moderns abuse that word("trauma")more abominably than Bobby Brown maligned Whitney Houston, during the duration of their marriage

You say this happened in college... Are we talking

-Witnessing The Skull And Bones Society sacrifice a newborn to Baphomet in Gamma House's basement

or

-Your towel falling off, as you walked down the hall from the shower, whereupon the girls laughed at the crookedness of your schlong?

 

[BillyPilgrim]

Get a healing touch or reiki practitioner to physically work on your heart OP

 

[Jesse Pinkman]

Dang it OP, you are lucky that you are one of the few people on here I like bro, like enough to come out of a hiatus only to help out. I am going to write about this more in-depth but here we go, hope you got a lot of time to read. I will break it up into two parts. First the why you are likely feeling this way.

You are being impacted by the college hype in mainstream society and that is so hard to separate from.

It really is. No matter how Red Pilled we all become, at the end of the day we are all still victims to society and its expectations. American society says that you must have the most fun of your life hooking up, making friends, being high status, and being that cool kid in college. After that, you are supposed to "grow up" and "be an adult". It is almost like this slight to where anything you do after college will never make up for the struggles you had in college and the loser you were back then.

No matter what you do, you will never be a "college Chad" or the "big man on campus". Subconsciously, you are pedestalizing college life and that is a tough cycle to break.

It is also hitting you career wise.

You see kids that were popular and cool get those cushy corporate jobs after college due to their "network". Meanwhile, a kid like you had to work hard for his jobs and opportunities. It can really weigh on you to see how some kids won big there. Mentally, it is a tough pill to swallow.

So to break it down, it kind of goes like this.

1. American society and its pedestalization of "youth" (18-25)

2. American society and its pedestalization of college

3. The expectation that these are the prime years to have fun

4. American society and its negative stigma towards adulthood, especially as a single man

5. The feeling of inadequacy due to your past to where nothing you do now is good enough because you are just "too old" or "that old guy who cannot grow up"

That is what makes it bad. It is not only that college sucked for you but this feeling that no matter what you do as an adult, you are inadequate. It is as if even if you do well, you are "lame".

And it gets at you every day.

Maybe not every minute, every hour, or even every day really but it does get at you. People bring it up in convos. College casually gets pedestalized. And you are reminded into who you were back then.

It becomes this overwhelming burden you have to carry and you cannot run from your past and who you were back then.

 

[Jesse Pinkman]

Now for the potential resolution.

OP, I was never in the most popular fraternity in college or dating the hottest sorority girls. Even after college, I had my struggles in corporate life. I spent part of my 20s compensating for it. Here is some of my advice.

Run towards that very thing that pains you, write it down on a piece of paper and think about it.

Is it the fact you couldn't get the hottest girls?

Is it the fact that you could not get the high paying job out of school?

Is it the fact that you were not socially accepted?

Write it down in a notebook and in private. If tears pour out of your eyes, let them. We do not know but you can tell some of us on here and dudes might be able to help. Screw it, either DM me or comment on my blog in my sig. Find those handful of things that make you tear up and write about them in a diary.

Detach from Black Pill, Red Pill, or Mainstream Society standards for the time being.

You don't have to get married by 30.

You don't have to "grow up" in that mature lame way.

You don't have to date the ugly chick now because you are 35.

I recommend taking some break from the forum and the internet too since it does become depressing.

Find that Post-College High to look forward to in the future.

Save up enough money and travel to various party cities in the world chasing women, disregard what society says.

Go all in on your career and make the big bucks from either that or your business.

Get strict on the kinds of people you want in your life and only keep them there, make them high quality and be choosy.

Create your post college story in your head and make it interesting, disregard what society says.

FWIW @CornbreadFed I have a friend who had a miserable college experience but then at 30, with his remote job, he stayed in a different college town a month and racked up lays. He even sent me some receipts on SnapChat. He even plans to write about the various Uni girls at various colleges.

I know another guy who quit his job at 35, was a millionaire, and spent an entire year traveling the world and chasing tail at various big cities.

I know another guy who got driven on his career goals, made millions in his 30s, and then created an exclusive group where only certain guys were let in. He even turned down some former frat bros from his uni that asked for a job.

You have to look ahead.

Somehow and someway, paint a rosy picture of the future.

Paint your ideal dream life 5 years from now and work backwards.

Make it as idealistic as you want but go with that in your head.

It can be something like you are going to marry a supermodel and be at her fancy events.

It can be you having a revolving door of 19 yr olds coming through.

It can be anything.

 

[Serenity]

To keep it short, college was a terrible time in my life and it compounded in to me struggling career & life wise until like 30. I can’t unsee and undo what happened, so those memories, experiences, and consequences continue to haunt me and negatively affect my confidence. I’ve considered therapy, but I am pretty skeptical on that option. Anyone else can relate?

My trauma was different (abusive BPD mother), but I can absolutely relate to how that affects confidence and all that.

I can't unsee or undo anything either, it's not like I will ever actually forget what happened, but remembering it doesn't affect my feelings today. Right now I'm thinking about that time my mother sat there screaming and threatening to kill herself holding a big ass kitchen knife in her hand, but it doesn't trigger me, I feel no different at all bringing that memory up. It has no power over me anymore, I don't do things because that happened, I don't avoid things because that happened.

However, it was pulling my strings from behind the scenes right up to the moment I was done processing the emotions of it, then I was ready to let it go. There was a lot of other sh!t I processed as well, I had to or my life would have been fvcked today. It was fvcked enough back then in 2013, I can't imagine how fvcked it would be now if I didn't do the work when I did.

The best thing I ever did was to disconnect from the world and sit with my own thoughts and feelings, until I felt confident there was no more sh!t lurking in the shadowy depths of my subconscious. It was hard, very hard. The urge to distract myself further was a strong force, the urge to read the news, play video games, scroll the forums, watch stuff on YouTube. I forced myself to turn off everything let myself get bored, alone, in my own living room. I would go to work and go buy food, otherwise I would work on my issues in solitude.

It was also very tempting to find answers externally. To go Google a bunch of stuff, ask on the forum or read books. Thing is, I had already been doing that for a few months before shutting myself out and it didn't do sh!t. It can't possibly help you find YOUR way, only YOU can know your own way, it can only come from you. At some point I thought I needed to pick my ideology, but I fvcking don't, I live on my own terms and I make up my own mind about every individual little thing. There is no ideology out there I will wholeheartedly agree on, they ALL have something that doesn't align with me, but many of them have parts I do agree with even from two opposing sides.

Still whenever something disturbs my peace, I block everything out and just sit with myself until I have it figured out, without distraction. You can't hear your true self if you constantly fill your mind with the noise of the world. When you get good at it you can amplify the signal that is your true self and even if the world is making a lot of noise around you, you will not get lost in it. That to me is confidence, I know who I am, I know what I think and I can bring it with me anywhere I go. It's very apparent to me that very few people I interact with on a daily basis possess such mental clarity.

Women absolutely love it btw, I have a very powerful presence and they can feel it. I could not do this at all if the trauma of my past kept pulling my strings, you absolutely cannot achieve this while still being a prisoner of the past.

I don't know what to tell you or what you should do, but perhaps this gave you a few pointers on where to go next.

 

[CornbreadFed]

I appreciate all of the responses, so I guess I will highlight what has been hindering down. I have been taking time off the internet & such do to the election being annoying, but I was triggered at a company retreat recently that made me create this topic. Also, my college friend broke up with his gf and is out in the dating game and kind of dealing with similar trauma.

Growing up black in a rich white suburb is an awful experience unless you are a top dog on the football or basketball team. Everything about me was pretty much determined by my race first then me. I learned to deal with this issue in dating, but dealing with this in corporate america has been a tougher challenge IMHO. Either way, I will make a separate topic kind of highlighting the pros in this topic that I think most men can relate to.

 

[BaronOfHair]

Growing up black in a rich white suburb is an awful experience unless you are a top dog on the football or basketball team

Yeah... Being driven to a garrishly overpriced prep school in the family Rolls Royce each morning, while the kids on the other side of town have to rely on public school buses(Which may or may not show up)that cart them off to gang infested sh-tholes masquerading as places of erudition, is guaranteed to give just about anyone in your shoes PTSD

 

[Jesse Pinkman]

I appreciate all of the responses, so I guess I will highlight what has been hindering down. I have been taking time off the internet & such do to the election being annoying, but I was triggered at a company retreat recently that made me create this topic. Also, my college friend broke up with his gf and is out in the dating game and kind of dealing with similar trauma.

Growing up black in a rich white suburb is an awful experience unless you are a top dog on the football or basketball team. Everything about me was pretty much determined by my race first then me. I learned to deal with this issue in dating, but dealing with this in corporate america has been a tougher challenge IMHO. Either way, I will make a separate topic kind of highlighting the pros in this topic that I think most men can relate to.

From here we can still only infer, we don't know what was said at your company retreat that triggered the response you had. What I can tell you and just about almost everyone on this forum about Rich White Suburbia is this, you will never be a part of it. Even though you will never be a part of it doesn't mean you can't benefit from it. You can still get women from that crowd, make friends from that crowd, and get some of the same jobs they get but you won't fully be a part of it no matter what you do. You have to be born into it.

Even people born into it can easily not be a part of it. I was quite close to that crowd and backstabbing, gossip, and throwing someone under the bus is the name of the game. Even the people you see on the outside looking in as friends and one happy community are rarely that. The amount of times I have seen frat bros have a falling out over a girl is insane.

You just have to accept that if you haven't already and carve out your own niche.

Then embrace that niche and life path you have carved out.

A lot of the misery and trauma dudes have is that they compare themselves to a "Chad" and his upbringing but he had a different set of circumstances. You have to make the most of your circumstances and carve them into your unique story.

The more likely you are to do that, the better off you will be.